Object Raku Technology Wins Foresight Challenge

September 12, 2018

By: The Working Forest Staff

Foresight and FPInnovations announced that Object Raku Technology, with its project partner Forsite Consultants Ltd., has been selected as the winner of the FPInnovations – Foresight Challenge (formerly the ARCTIC Innovation Challenge). These companies have been awarded a $200,000 contract to further advance technologies and techniques for rapidly producing more accurate and more detailed LiDAR-based forest inventories.

The partners will develop and test a new hybrid LiDAR approach that uses area-based and individual tree-based LiDAR inventories. When combined with traditional survey plot and terrestrial LiDAR data, this information will accurately identify tree species, stem counts, and diameters, leading to a much better understanding of the ecological and economic value of our forests.

The results of the field trial will include reference data, methodologies, and sample inventories. It is anticipated that there will be a rapid adoption of the new methodologies by the forest sector. This should result in a broader availability of best-in-class forest inventories, leading to better resource management and efficiencies for the companies operating in the sector and for the public.

Foresight is currently running six successful Challenge Dialogues in the energy, forestry, and bioenergy sectors. The Foresight Challenge program accelerates the adoption of transformative clean technologies by bringing together industry, entrepreneurs, and the public sector to find and fund solutions for resource-sector challenges in western Canada. It is funded with support from Western Economic Diversification (WD) and Innovative BC (formerly BCIC).

“The work being done in the field trial demonstrates the potential for high-tech companies to work with the forest sector to explore new approaches to complex issues and is an excellent example of how open innovation can be applied in the sector,” said Stéphane Renou, President and CEO, FPInnovations.

“Working with FPInnovations on this forestry challenge once again proves how collaboration between industry, government and other stakeholders is key to technology transformation in the resource sector. Congratulations to Object Raku and Forsite Consultants on advancing to the field trial, we are optimistic that the result will be a game-changing solution,” said Jeanette Jackson, Foresight’s Managing Director.

“We are grateful for this opportunity and appreciate the recognition of our on-going focus and perseverance to work on the hard problems. The industry needs the results of the ARCTIC Challenge to feed planning and operational process models. We foresee significant benefits being realized by the forest industry from richly detailed forest inventory data that can improve efficiencies and expand knowledge of the raw material supply chain,” said Mike Parlow, President of Object Raku and Cam Brown, Manager of RMT Group, Forsite Consultants Ltd.